AJN in November: Palliative Care, Mild TBI, the Ethics of Force-Feeding Prisoners, More

AJN1114.Cover.OnlineAJN’s November issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss.

Palliative care versus hospice. For many seriously ill, hospitalized older adults, early implementation of palliative care is critical. These patients often require medically and ethically complex treatment decisions. This month’s original research article, “Staff Nurses’ Perceptions Regarding Palliative Care for Hospitalized Older Adults,” found that staff nurses often confuse palliative and hospice care, a fact that suggests a need for increased understanding and knowledge in this area. This CE feature offers 2.5 CE credits to those who take the test that follows the article.

Mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) can have profoundly negative effects on quality of life and can negatively affect relationships with family and caretakers. This issue’s other CE feature, “Mild Traumatic Brain Injury,” reviews the most commonly reported signs and symp­toms of mild TBI, explores the condition’s effects on both patient and family, and provides direction for devel­oping nursing interventions that promote patient and family adjustment. Earn 2 CE credits by taking the test that follows the article. To further explore the topic, listen to a podcast interview with the author (this and other podcasts are accessible via the Behind the Article page on our Web site or, in our iPad app, by tapping the icon on the first […]

2016-11-21T13:03:37-05:00October 31st, 2014|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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End-of-Life Discussions and the Uneasy Role of Nurses

Amanda Anderson, BSN, RN, CCRN, is a critical care nurse in New York City and enrolled in the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing/Baruch College of Public Affairs dual master’s degree program in nursing administration and public administration. She is currently doing a graduate placement at AJN two days a week, working on a variety of projects. Her personal blog is called This Nurse Wonders.

Evelyn Simak/ via Wikimedia Commons Evelyn Simak/ via Wikimedia Commons

Nurse and writer Theresa Brown wrote a piece for this past Sunday’s New York Times on the dilemmas physicians face when their patients want to stop aggressive treatment (the latest installment of Brown’s quarterly column, What I’m Reading, is in the September issue of AJN [paywall]).

Brown’s Times column talks about physicians who have trouble letting patients go and instead push for more unnecessary and often unwanted treatment. She describes a case in which—after palliative care has been decided upon by the patient’s family members, the palliative care team, and even the heartbroken oncologist—the patient’s primary care physician intervenes and pushes for still more futile treatment. (Much of the article delves into the broader issue of palliative care and the benefits it has for patients in many stages of chronic illness.)

Have you ever disagreed with […]

2016-11-21T13:03:57-05:00September 11th, 2014|career, Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective, patient engagement, Patients|1 Comment
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Takeaways from 2014 ANA Membership Assembly

Pamela Cipriano, incoming ANA president Pamela Cipriano, incoming ANA president

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

So far, so good

In June, the American Nurses Association (ANA) convened its second membership assembly, which included representatives of constituent and state nurses associations, individual members groups and affiliated entities, plus the board of directors. (This is the structure that replaced the House of Delegates as the official governing body of the ANA, when ANA restructured in 2012. See our 2012 report on the restructuring.)

The assembly was preceded by ANA’s annual Lobby Day on June 12th, in which nurses visited legislators on Capitol Hill to talk up legislation important to nursing, like bills on staffing, safe patient handling, and one that would remove barriers to efficient home care services.

This membership assembly was subdued—perhaps a gift for Karen Daley, the outgoing two-term president who shepherded the organization through a turbulent period of change. There were no contentious resolutions to deal with this time—there were only three issues brought to the group through dialogue forums, to develop recommendations for the board of directors:

  • scope of practice (full practice authority for all RNs)
  • integrating palliative care into health care delivery
  • promoting interprofessional health care teams

While the scope of practice topic was ostensibly promoting full practice for ALL RNs, most of the discussion […]

2016-11-21T13:04:27-05:00June 23rd, 2014|career, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Intensive Care of a Different Ilk

MayReflectionsIllustrationThis month’s Reflections essay (“Intensive Care”) is by John Fiddler, an NP who describes his work as an inpatient hospice nurse in New York City as being “as close to the ideal of nursing as I have ever been.”

This is a big claim—but if you read Fiddler’s brief, artful summary of the evolution of his nursing career, which started in an actual ICU, and then his description of what he found when he went to work in a hospice, you might find that he makes a pretty good case.

Here’s a small excerpt:

Inpatient hospice to me was the room at the end of the palliative care corridor that I had never bothered to visit. I had pictured it as a quiet haven for the dying, where birds chirp outside and music is heard playing through open windows as patients calmly drift off and up into dusty shafts of sunlight.

Not quite.

Instead, picture a unit where patients arrive on stretchers in extreme pain and distress, afraid, breathless—usually with families trailing behind, holding on to as much emotional and personal baggage as they can carry. Often these patients bear the physical and psychic bruises of a prolonged ICU stay.

And this is what happens here…

Maybe the author will someday find another ideal of nursing care, or maybe he won’t, but it’s worth reading his account of the current one. Reflections essays are open access. (Click through to the PDF […]

2016-11-21T13:04:48-05:00May 9th, 2014|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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AJN 2013 Book of the Year Awards: Winners in 19 Categories

AJN 2013 Book of the Year Awards 

BOTYSince 1969, AJN has been announcing its annual list of the best in nursing publishing. The most valuable texts of each year are chosen by AJN’s panel of judges. Only books published between August of the prior year and August of the award year are eligible. To quote AJN‘s editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy, our Book of the Year awards, announced each year in our January issue, “are sought after by authors and publishers . . . the awards give us the opportunity to acknowledge high-quality publications.”

Below you can find the 2013 first-place winner for each of the 19 categories. To see a listing of all winners (there are 2nd and 3rd place winners for each category as well), please click this link. […]

2016-11-21T13:05:40-05:00January 8th, 2014|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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